Long Term Quality Food Storage – The Best Freeze Dried Foods

There has never been a better time to build up your food storage what with the hazards that threatenfood deliveries such as extreme weather, heat, fire, flooding and civil strife.

Freeze dried meals are conventional favorites when it comes to emergency preparedness food, howevernew options could make freeze dried foods a good choice for everyday meals.​

We have been tasting and testing and also reading labels for over a year now, experimenting with allkinds of brands of ready to eat foods. We have documented our top choices for the best freeze driedfoods. (For those who have been waiting for us to be done with our testing, thank you for yourpatience!)​

What Is The Best Freeze-Dried Food?​

If you mention “Freeze-Dried Food” to any regular American – someone whose meals are usually made in home kitchens and restaurants – their frame of mind would likely shift to astronaut food. In fairness to them, it is as ordinary to space flights as popcorn is to movie houses.​

Processing Effects

Freeze dry food is first frozen solid and removed with water through a vacuum pump. A heat source is used to get rid of the ice crystals. The resulting product retains at least 98% of its total nutritional value while at the same time, gaining only 20% of its original weight.

A studying conducted and published in Chile in the year 2011 revealed that a new method of freeze drying was added to the mix – vacuum freeze drying and atmospheric drying with infrared radiation to affect its nutritional value.

Nutritional Value

Dr. Gary Stoner from the American Institute for Cancer Research discovered the same antioxidant phytochemicals in fresh fruits as there were in the freeze-dried versions. Both Chilean blueberry study and Stoner’s research, however, discovered that there were less cell-protecting chemicals and polyphenols in freeze dried foods.​

Extra Health Benefits

Freeze-dried berries have been the subject of one of Stoner’s studies where it revealed that the fruit has the potential to prevent and shrink colon tumors. He also took part in one study which shows the importance of black raspberry powder (freeze-dried) in the treatment of ulcerative colitis.

Researchers also bear witness to strawberry powder’s (freeze-dried) capacity to improve cholesterol, especially bad cholesterol levels in females with metabolic complications which have been known to cause stroke, type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease.​

What To Look For In Best Freeze-Dried Foods

The Highest Energy to Weight Ratio

Scrutinizing the labels and finding out the meals that will provide you with the least weight gain and most energy is one of the things you should look into. You may have also witnessed how the process of comparing meals tends to be quite challenging due to the number of brands and variety of nutritional value.

Whenever possible, compare every 100 grams of dried products to be more effective in this process. It is also a good habit to search the company’s website for answers to the total number of grams and do your math.

It would surprise you to notice how the same brands can vary significantly regarding energy ranges even though they have the same amounts of calories in every meal. The amount of weight may also differ to a certain degree.

These differences affect the energy weight ratio of these foods, and you want the one with the most value.

According to tests, brands like Mountain House and Extreme have been known to offer the ideal energy-weight ratio at the value of 486kcals/100g of dried weight. For major meals, Lylo contains the flavor that had the most amount of energy at 620kcals/100g and Expedition Foods listed next with 585kcals/100g.

There are however a wide variety of brands for you to choose from. If you are considering weight, then don’t choose a meal that has extra calories in every meal. It would be very difficult for you to fight the weight battle with that amount of calories.

Best Nutritional Value

Contrary to what many people believe, choosing the right freeze-dried food is not just about calories. You will rarely find one which will carry out your energy needs during the day and provide you with more stamina and endurance to continue all of your activities.

Thus, determining the source of your calories is vital and provides you with sufficient fuel. If you’re doing intense activities, under circumstances of heat and altitude, your body would probably require more carbohydrates for fuel.

Should your meal contain higher calories coming from fat, then there may be a mismatch between the fuel and the engine.

When it comes to breakfast, Lyo has been known to possess the most number of carbohydrates (84%) while taking into account that they provide the least energy-weight ratio. Fusion provides 58% of the calories from carbohydrates.​

For major meals, both Expedition Foods and Lyo contain meal options that provide the ideal carbohydrate content although it must be emphasized that the later contains a stark range of 26-64%. Thus, it is important to make sure your meal provides more carbohydrate content.

Another important component to consider is protein. Protein is essential in building up your body and helping it recover from daily stress. Among the brands, Extreme has the ideal protein content (10-18% range) while the other brands either have too much or too little protein content in one meal.​

Tastes Like Real Food

We often hear people complain about freeze-dried meals not being always palatable or as textured as real food. And there are freeze dried foods that aren’t even close to tasting like natural food. But freeze-dried meals have come a long way as far as taste and texture are concerned.

The best products, for instance, have added flavors that make the food taste like it’s just been prepared fresh from the fridge. And so don’t forget to consider taste and texture when it comes to choosing freeze-dried food.​

The Perfect Option For Special Diets

Special diets are becoming a major factor when it comes to food selection due to medical and lifestyle constraints. Some people prefer to have more vegetables and fruits than meat, and the best freeze-dried storage kits should be complete with special diets.

If you have celiac disease, for example, I’m sure you’d prefer eating only g﻿﻿﻿﻿luten-free food. Under such circumstances, you need to make sure your food storage does not contain dishes that would be bad for your health.​

Mountain House Beef Stroganoff with Noodles is among the most widely taken freeze-dried meals in the market. Created with onions, tender beef, creamy sauce and savory mushrooms, all it takes is a single bite to relish the good taste. Every pouch contains sufficient food to meet your daily food sustenance.

Pros

Easy to prepare. All you need to do is add hot water to the food, and it would be ready for seating

The storage has a very long shelf-life. It has proven to last for more than 12 years without changing the original taste

The noodles give it a unique taste and flavor.

Cons

Some people complain that the meat is a little tough to chew, but most people think the meat isn’t bad at all.

I love Valley Food Storage since they have no GMOs, no MSG, no hydrogenated oils and no fillers. They also have gluten free and dairy free choices for people who are in need of them, and you can make custom food storage kits by choosing only those food stuffs that you prefer.

For the best prices, you could purchase bulk kits made for 1 month, 3 months or a year.

Pros

If you wish to build up your food storage in time, they have purchase plans every month that ship a set number of food every month

Just like a lot of pre-packed long-lasting storage meals, these meals are pretty light on the meat.

Cons

People complain about the fact that you have to boil water to enjoy the benefits of this food. But that’s not that big of a task to do.

Augason Farms has a wide variety of food, giving you a lot of options to choose from. I love the basic freeze dried vegetables such as corn, broccoli, and peas as well as fruit like bananas and apples.

They also have real meat chicken chunks and dried beef. They can be accessed online and with several retailers.

Pros

Foods are packed in reliable containers, which could be resealed but for the best quality, you could vacuum seal leftovers if they are not seen to be used shortly for a short amount of time

MaryJanesFarm provides 100 percent organic food. Bags could be purchased as singles on the internet from Amazon.com or directly through their online store. The lists of ingredients are short, which I love a lot.

Pros

The meals are famous especially to people involved in backpacking as well as other outdoor activities since they are packaged in EcoPouch.

This kind of packaging will allow you to rehydrate and heat the meal inside the pouch through the additional boiling water

No pot or extended cooking is required. This is obviously an advantage especially during emergency cases because you do not need to wash extra cooking utensils.

Cons

Some assert that even though the food is packaged in bags that are not so durable even though they are eco-friendly.

With a 25 year shelf-life, the food package is a great recipe for camping, emergencies and everyday usage. This bucket variety contains everything you need from Milk, Veggies, Breakfast, and Fruits. These assortments of foods and dishes are delicious, affordable and high in quality.

Pros

This simple good kit is great for daily usage and can be easily stored during emergencies

Interested in which freeze dried food to keep in times of emergency? This video provides useful information:

Final Thoughts

There are several reasons why we could need freeze dried food. Whether it be a food shortage, disaster or a simple camping activity, this food can give us an instant meal. Thus, we want to make sure we choose only the quality food items because we may be needing it only once.

There are also different varieties of freeze dried food – as we have seen. Among the five best freeze dried foods, I consider the Mountain House Beef Stroganoff with Noodles as my top choice. I like the fact that it contains all my dietary needs (protein, carbohydrates, fiber) in one pack. I also like the volume of food content it contains, and the meat is simply delicious.

Whichever type you choose, just make sure to consider the five best freeze dried food in this post. They are considered the best for a reason, and you should have them in your storage.​

RainyAdventures.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Additionally, RainyAdventures.com participates in various other affiliate programs, and we sometimes get a commission through purchases made through our links.